Next week, on November 11, veterans will get only two minutes of recognition -- if people stop to reflect at all -- while the rest of the year their sacrifice is forgotten.

If Canada’s mission in Afghanistan does end in 2011, 35,000 men and women will have served in that theatre -- 133 have been killed thus far -- and the Canadian Forces’ (CF) low estimate is that as many as 2,000 could be returning home with an Operational Stress Injury (OSI) such as PTSD.

With the war in Iraq still ongoing and the conflict in Afghanistan going from bad to worse, who is paying the price? Can success be measured by piling the dead up against a wall – ours and theirs?  How high does the ladder to freedom and democracy have to be?

In Afghanistan:

-One hundred and thirty-two Canadians soldiers dead (also, one diplomat and two aid workers) since the 2002 invasion began. Twenty-six dead as of October 28, 2009.

The battle to keep U.S. Iraq war resisters in Canada has been ongoing since January 2004 when Jeremy Hinzman first arrived in Canada and filed a refugee claim as a conscientious objector.

Hinzman was the first U.S. Iraq resister to seek sanctuary in Canada as he and others face punishment under a charge of being Absent Without Official Leave (“going AWOL”) or for desertion under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for refusing to participate in the Iraq war for moral reasons.

The area surrounding the town of Caledonia, Ontario, has been this province’s ground-zero when it comes to First Nations land claim issues.

A 200-year land claim dispute between the government and the Six Nations came to the mainstream media’s attention in the winter of 2006, when Six Nations protesters occupied the Douglass Creek Estates (a residential development) to defend their rights to the land.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney have the political power to decide who they want to let into Canada and who they want to keep out.

With the power to make these decisions, a pattern has emerged where the current Conservative government has laid out the red carpet for former U.S. government officials such as George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Condoleezza Rice. While other people seeking entry or residency to Canada have encountered nothing but a locked door and an unwelcome mat. Or, if they currently reside in Canada, they are about to be kicked out.

When you accuse anyone of war crimes, you’d better be sure you have the evidence to back it up; such an accusation is the equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded shopping mall.

It’s a serious charge, something that sits heavily on our psyche as fragile human beings who generally tend to disbelieve that any one could be capable of committing crimes against humanity, especially if they have elected him president.

Robin Long was the first Iraq war resister to be deported from Canada in July, 2008. He sought refuge in B.C., refusing to fight in what he still considers an illegal and immoral war.

The twenty-five year old from Idaho was given a dishonourable discharge from the US military and sentenced by court marshal to fifteen months in prison; the longest desertion sentence since the beginning of the Iraq war. He is likely to be released in July 2009. As conditional to his deportation, Long cannot re-enter Canada to visit his girlfriend or son for the next ten years.

War ain't cheap. But it's better for big business the longer it lasts. Defense contractors don't care about death tolls and MIA lists, only dollars and cents. The colour of blood is green.

First, let's start with Iraq. A December 2008 Washington Post poll found, "Seventy percent say President-elect Barack Obama should fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw U.S. forces from the country within 16 months." It now appears Obama will miss fulfilling that timeline by at least three months.

Bush's pre-emptive declaration of victory

The fight for Iraq war resisters to remain in Canada is a two front war.

The political front

On June 3, 2008, Canadian Parliament voted in favour of allowing Iraq war resisters to seek permanent residence status in Canada.

October was National Child Abuse Prevention month. But perhaps it was easier for all of us - media included - to focus on the Canadian election, the American election, the crashing stock market, T. Boone Pickens as an energy activist, Obama's historic victory, the Sarah Palin parodies on Saturday Night Live...

Look: U.S. elections, pantsuits, McCain bailouts, gun-toting moms, Obama-rama, the red/blue divide, pigs with lipstick!!!

Sure some of those issues were very important, others not so much, but the issue of child abuse just got lost in that highly political month of October 2008. No one really wanted to talk about it. But then again, who would?